Services / AI implementation
Everybody's telling manufacturers to "use AI." Almost nobody's telling you how to make it useful for your operation: set up around the work you already do, loaded with your own knowledge, connected to the systems you already run, and configured so your data never leaves your hands. That's the work, and it's what this is.
Free AI tools are easy to try and easy to abandon. They don't know your procedures, your customers, or the way you actually quote and run a job, so your people end up re-explaining the business every morning and getting generic answers back. The fix isn't a bigger subscription. It's setting AI up around your operation, with your own knowledge inside it.
I spent my career in manufacturing, including a decade running a machine shop. So I'm not coming at this as a tech vendor who read about your world in a case study. I know the difference between what genuinely helps on the floor and in the office and what just demos well. I'll tell you straight which is which.
The same few things come up in almost every conversation:
Most operations start at step one and stop there. The later steps only matter when step one runs out of room.
I'll tell you which step you actually need, and when you don't need me to build anything at all.
If you know AI matters and don't know yet which of these you want, working that out on your own jobs takes more than one sitting. That's what the standing hour is: an hour a week on video, on whatever you're working on, plus the work it kicks off in between. It's the slower way in, and often the right one.
The first question every operation asks: where does our data live, and is it training somebody's AI? The straight answer: it's set up inside the environment you already run, under your own accounts. Your prompts, your documents, and your know-how stay in your own systems; the platform vendor acts only as your processor, and none of it is used to train the underlying AI models. The assistant can only see what the person using it already has permission to see. And if you do ITAR- or CMMC-controlled work, there's a government-cloud option that keeps everything inside that compliance boundary.
I'm not married to one tool. Most often that's Claude (Teams) set up around your business; if you run Microsoft or Google, I fit it to that; if you need a shared knowledge base that does more than an off-the-shelf assistant, I build toward that. I fit the setup to how you already work, not the other way around. The point was never a particular vendor; it's that your data stays in your hands and the tool actually knows your business.
I'd rather be straight about the edges than oversell it. This assists your people; it doesn't replace them. Most of what I set up is there to take the repetition off your staff and put your own knowledge at their fingertips, reviewed by a person, not running the business on autopilot. AI still gets things wrong, and there are jobs it can't do reliably yet. Knowing exactly where that line sits is half of what you're paying for; a setup that's honest about what it can't do beats one that pretends it can do everything.
Both come up on nearly every first call, and both get a straight answer here. The first is whether any of this puts people out of work, which on the floor it does not: will AI replace CNC machinists covers where the real change lands and where the AI label is doing more work than the software. The second is the one your customers are starting to ask you: is ChatGPT safe for company data, including prints under NDA and anything export-controlled.
It starts with a paid half-day, $2,500, at your place or over video. AI reads, drafts, and remembers what your people know. It is not exact, and it does not run your systems. So we go through the jobs eating your week and sort them: the reading, writing and know-how AI can genuinely help with, and the parts that need a tool built because the answer has to be right every time. Your people leave able to write skills themselves. A skill is your way of doing a job, written down so the AI follows it instead of guessing. Whether AI, a small build, or nothing at all is the honest answer, I'll say so. Written document within two working days.
If loading more of your knowledge is worth doing after that, it stays small and low-commitment: a one-time setup scoped to how much there is to load, then a month-to-month where I keep your workspace running and current. Stay with it as long as it's earning its keep, and step away the day it isn't. There's no long contract to sign before you find out whether it's worth it.
And if a half-day up front isn't where you want to start, start with the standing hour instead. Same aim, spread across weeks instead of done in one sitting, on your own jobs as they come up. Neither one requires the other first.
Whichever fits your operation. Most often Claude (Teams) set up around your business; sometimes a configured assistant on the platform you already run. I pick on fit, not on what's easiest to sell, and I'm not a one-tool shop.
Yes. There's a government-cloud setup built to keep controlled information inside its compliance boundary, so a regulated operation isn't a dead end.
It starts with the paid half-day, $2,500, where your team's AI gets set up and your people learn to write skills. If loading more of your knowledge is worth doing after that, it's a one-time setup scoped to how much there is to load and how many people use it, then a month-to-month you can step out of. If you'd rather start slower, the standing hour is a flat monthly with no half-day in front of it.
That's step three. I build that piece as real software and run it for you. Same person who set up your workspace, so nothing gets lost translating between a setup team and a build team.
Roughly: AI does the reading, code does the arithmetic. It's the single most useful thing to get straight before you spend money, so it has its own page: AI is a good reader, it's a bad accountant.
Related reading: capturing the know-how that walks out the door, the same problem from the knowledge-capture angle.
If this has already been tried once. Plenty of operations bought accounts and watched nobody use them, and the reason almost never turns out to be the people: why most AI projects fail in small manufacturing. If what's driving this is that you can't fill the office roles, that page lists what to automate first and in what order. And if somebody has suggested a drag-and-drop tool would do the same job for less, here's where those stop working.
Send a note. First call's free. About 30 minutes, a straight conversation about how your operation runs and where your people lose time, not a demo. If AI can genuinely help, I'll show you where; if you don't need me, I'll tell you that too.